1. Technical Field
The invention relates to an apparatus for feeding items of laundry to a laundry-treatment arrangement, in particular a mangle, having a feed conveyor, having a spreading arrangement which is arranged upstream of the feed conveyor and has at least two spreading clamps which can be displaced transversely upstream of the feed conveyor, and having at least one loading station upstream of the spreading arrangement, the at least one loading station having a loading location, which is arranged at a lower level than the spreading clamps and at least one conveying arrangement, which slopes up obliquely to the higher-level spreading clamps and has at least one loading clamp.
Apparatuses of the type mentioned here serve for feeding items of laundry mechanically to a mangle or some other laundry-treatment arrangement. An item of laundry is introduced by hand into loading clamps by way of opposite corners of one edge. The loading clamps transfer the item of laundry to spreading clamps. The item of laundry is spread out by the spreading clamps. Each spread-out item of laundry hanging on the spreading clamps is then deposited, with the spread-out front edge in front, on a feed conveyor or on a depositing strip and is transferred from the latter on to the feed conveyor. From the feed conveyor the item of laundry is then fed, in a spread-out state, to the mangle or some other laundry-treatment arrangement.
2. Related Art
In order for it also to be possible for large items of laundry to be spread out by the spreading clamps such that they hang freely, it is necessary for the spreading clamps to be arranged at a correspondingly high level. In order that the operator need not raise the item of laundry to the extent where it can be fitted into the loading clamps in the state in which it hangs down freely, it is known from EP 0 554 205 B1 to arrange the loading clamps on carriages which can be displaced on upwardly sloping rails to higher-level spreading clamps. Once the item of laundry has been moved off on the rails and transferred to the spreading clamps, by the carriages bearing the loading clamps, the empty loading clamps have to be moved back again along the rails, into the bottom loading position. The operator thus has to wait at the respective loading station until the empty loading clamps have moved back again into the bottom loading position. This reduces the throughput of the known apparatus.